Easier adoption law

The Government intends to amend the present adoption law, so children could be more easily adopted. The amendments will be made only to the provisions regarding national adoptions. International adoptions will continue to be banned.

One of the amendments put forward by the Executive provides that any child that spends more than a year in institutional or foster care should be officially put to adoption. The present law does not include a provision of this kind. All the amendments are aimed at national adoptions. International adoptions will continue to be banned.

In the new draft for amending the adoption law, the Government set the period for adopting a child whose parents are unknown to 30 days.

Moreover, the Secretary of State for the Romanian Office for adoptions, Bogdan Panait, stated that another extreme amendment was the reduction of the time period during which a child whom the biological parents are not interested in raising can be given for adoption to other families.

According to the secretary of state, at present there are almost 67 000 children in the system, out of which 23 000 are placed in institutional care and 20 000 in foster families.

The new draft redefines a series of terms such as residence, and aligns the adoption legislation with the new Civil Code.

Also, the DNA test was introduced.

‘We’ve introduced the DNA test for those that admit to having a child from an extramarital relationship and which, of course, is a preliminary step before informing the wife and put the child for adoption’, Bogdan Panait explained.

As far as the international adoptions are regarded, premiere Emil Boc expressed its support of the present provisions.

Translated by: Raluca Mizdrea

MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University